


Still Pond in Starlight

by Penny_and_her_thoughts



Category: Kingkiller Chronicles - Patrick Rothfuss
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, I did not have a plan when I started this, Idk if it counts as fluffy but it’s soft, set at some point when Kvothe is at the university
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-02
Updated: 2019-07-02
Packaged: 2020-06-02 12:53:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19441849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Penny_and_her_thoughts/pseuds/Penny_and_her_thoughts
Summary: Kvothe has some free time and thinks back on the night he and Denna sat by a pond when they first met.





	Still Pond in Starlight

He had found himself, one day, sitting idly in his room at Ankers. Wil and Sim were in class, or studying in the archives, and Kvothe simply could not muster up the energy to want to find them. It was a rare free day for him. His classes today had been over before his midday meal, he had hours before his shift at the Medica, and Kilvin had insisted he take a few days off from working in the Fishery, else he would reinstate his ban. 

“You’ve been looking too tired these past few span.” Kilvin had been fiddling with some small piece of bronze wire, trying to fashion it into a precise shape, and so did not look at Kvothe as he addressed him. “I don’t want to see you in here until Cendling. At the earliest.” He’d looked up then. “Else I’ll have to stop you working here again for longer. Can’t have students too tired to keep their eyes open trying to use heavy metals or some other such thing. Dangerous business that.” He had gone back to shaping the wire, and seeming satisfied, put the small shape down and reached to cut more wire. “Go, take a few days, and rest. I’ll see you on Cendling, and not a day earlier.” Kvothe had nodded and left, clearly dismissed. 

To be honest, he wasn’t too upset at the break. Kilvin was right, he was tired, and a few days without being surrounded by the hot air of the fishery would probably do him good. He pushed the thought of money out of his head, knowing it would only make him worried without anything to do about it. He wondered if it was worth it to make the trip to Imre now, but decided against. On another day he would have, but while the weather wasn’t too bad outside, here he could simply enjoy the light breeze that floated through his open window without venturing out into the rain that seemed to be hovering just between drizzle and fog. No, he could spend the day here at Ankers, practicing songs and reading one of the books he had borrowed from Devi. 

He pulled his lute from its case and took a moment or two to tune the strings before sitting on the floor up against the bed. Staring into nothing, he began plucking at the strings, running through a few songs he planned to play the next time he went to the Eolian. He didn’t think too hard at them though, letting some notes fall less than perfect, though none could call them wrong. He ran through these quickly, then let his fingers play as they would, without much thought on his part. It took a while before he came back to reality and realized he was playing Still Pond in Starlight. 

He didn’t stop playing, but now he really listened to the song. Of course it would come back to Denna. It always did, and he felt the familiar ache of wanting fill him as he remembered that night. How she looked, sitting amongst the stars glowing all around them. He remembered thinking how even if all else in his life was lost, if he had her then nothing could be wrong. It seemed childish to him now, but no less true. She had enchanted him from the moment they met, and he had yet to be released. Kvothe breathed out slowly, still lightly playing, but the tune had changed into something different. He couldn’t quite name it. 

He shouldn’t think of her like this. They were friends, tenuous friends at that, and thinking of how much he had fallen for her would help nothing. Kvothe, still remembering, instead tried to think of the stories she had told him. He hadn’t heard some of them before, which at the time had surprised him, though now he could rationalize that there was likely a great number of stories he had yet to hear. He thought of their conversation, and how it had felt almost like time had stopped around them to listen in.

_ “Oh come now, you must have heard of that one before?” Denna was laughing, and it nearly took Kvothe’s breath away, even if it was him she was laughing at. _

_ “Never! Where did you even hear it?”  _

_ “A lady never reveals her secrets.” She put on a faux-haughty expression, but there was laughter in her eyes. “Especially not to the likes of you.” _

_ “And what do you mean by that? Am I not good enough for this great secret well of stories you keep hidden in your travel pack?” _

_ She gave a good approximation of a shocked lady and poked at Kvothe. “So you do know my secret then!”  _

_ “I am a man of many talents. I know many things,” Kvothe said, putting on a similar faux-haughty expression, then dropping it and laughing as soon as Denna giggled. They laughed together a moment, then lapsed into a comfortable silence, gazing out across the starlit pond. _

_ “Are you really?” _

_ Kvothe looked back at Denna to find her still gazing out at the water. “Am I what?” _

_ “A man of many talents.” Her voice wasn’t critical, just curious, but he still took a moment before answering, letting the silence sweep over them again briefly. _

_ “I’d like to think I am, but wouldn’t everyone? Having many talents seems like a useful thing.” _

_ “True enough I suppose.” She paused. “I think though you wouldn’t want talents.” _

_ “Why not?” _

_ “Well,” Denna said, shifting her position on the stone slightly, “I’d think you would want skills more than talents. Talents are only so powerful, but skills can be honed into something truly impressive.”  _

_ “But couldn’t you just take a talent and make it a skill with practice?” _

_ “Oh, of course. But you can’t get by on talent alone. A skilled man with outpace a talented one any day of the month.”  _

_ Kvothe considered this a bit. “Then I suppose, in response to your question, I am a man of a few talents, but a great many skills.” Denna smiled. _

_ “That doesn’t surprise me in the least.” Kvothe felt his heart jump, and silently thanked his years of ingrained troupe training for letting him keep his composure. She was dazzling, and lit up by the stars all around them she seemed almost to glow. He looked away, past her shoulder and pointed at another constellation.  _

_ “Do you know a story for that one too?” Denna turned to see where he pointed, leaning close to his arm to trace his line of sight. “Those four close together in an arch, with the six in a line connecting the arch. With the three bright ones around the top.” _

_ “What’s this one called?” _

_ “The proper name is The Puca Aether, if I remember correctly, but mostly I’ve heard it called the Trickster from the Sky.” Denna’s eyes lit up with recognition.  _

_ “I do actually have a story for this one. Do you know it? Or are you yet again woefully uneducated?” _

_ “Of course I’m uneducated, why else would I be heading toward the university?” _

_ “Will they teach you stories?” _

_ “Well if you would tell them then I wouldn’t need them to, now would I?” He gave her a teasing look, and settled into the stance of a student, waiting for the lecture to begin, bright eyed and expectant.  _

_ “I suppose if you put it that way I can tell another story, but next you can tell me one. Maybe you know one that I don’t.” She returned his look, just as teasing, and shifted again into a more comfortable position looking out over the pond, to begin her story. _

_ “Many hundreds of years ago, before there were cities to travel between and before tinkers covered the roads, there lived a girl named Aesa. She was sweet and kind and generally well liked in her town, but had a tendency to wander, which no proper girl did back then.” Kvothe bit back a teasing comment about how proper it was for girls to wander in general. “One day she wandered too far into the woods and vanished from the village. The townsfolk were worried, but as it was a small town it couldn’t rouse a large force to go searching for her. They scoured the forest, but returned to the town empty handed. After two span of fruitless searching, they decided she was lost, but still sent word to keep a look out for her to the surrounding towns. They had all but given up hope of ever seeing Aesa again, and she became something of a cautionary tale for the other young girls in the town.”  _

_ Denna paused for a moment, scrunching her forehead slightly as if to remember something more. Kvothe leaned over slightly and gently bumped her shoulder with his own. _

_ “That doesn’t really explain the story of the Trickster from the Sky…” He teased lightly, laughing when she gave him a withering look. _

_ “Of course it doesn’t, it’s not finished.” _

_ “Well then, what happened next? What happened to young Aesa?” _

_ “That’s the problem, I can’t quite remember.” She looked up at the sky, as if the story would be written there. “I think she was brought to the fae realm and rescued a dragon. Or maybe there was something about wings crafted from spidersilk and the leaves of a magic tree?” She paused again shaking her head. “I don’t remember. Either way she ended up with some way to fly, but her time in the fae realm left her slightly twisted and chaotic, and so she flew around and wreaked havoc on people. Or something like that.”  _

_ “So why would there be a constellation of her if all she did was wreak havoc? Why do you think people would want to immortalize that?” _

_ “I think it was a punishment, actually. She sowed so much chaos that the moon grew sad, and somehow tricked her into flying into the sky, where the stars could hold her there forever.”  _

_ They were quiet for a moment, until Kvothe broke the silence. _

_ “I think that would be a terrible thing to happen.” Denna looked at him. _

_ “Which part?” _

_ “All of it. First to wander into the fae realm and have your mind broken or addled, and then to come back to the real world and be forced to exist in it with a broken mind, then to be punished for trying to do what your broken mind thought was right. It seems horrible.” _

_ “I never thought of it that way.” Denna shrugged slightly, looking up at the constellation again, this time more calculating. “It does seem pretty harsh. But it’s only a story.” _

_ “And an addled one at that. I thought you said you knew the story for that constellation?” Denna sat upright, indignant. _

_ “It’s been years since I had to remember it, and I’d like to see you do better! Since you seem to be such an expert, I trust you’ll have a-” She paused, giving him another haughty look, as if she was truly above criticism, “-non addled story hidden somewhere for me?” Kvothe laughed, watching Denna’s eyes shine with the challenge. _

_ “If you insist, then I must oblige. Ask any story of me, and if I know it, you shall have it.”  _

_ Denna grinned, lighting up once more. “Wonderful, my very own storyteller! I have quite a few stories to ask of you.” _

And ask she had. He hadn’t known all of them, and upon admitting this Denna had been almost as thrilled as when he had known one. When he didn’t know the story she would tell it, and he was entranced every time. 

Kvothe put down his lute with a sigh, ending the song he still had yet to put a name to. It was something that danced like Leaf Turning in the Wind but was peaceful like Still Pond in Starlight, and hung in his memory like something else he didn’t have the words for. He wasn’t going to Imre to look for her, he told himself firmly. He wouldn’t find her and it was fruitless to look. 

Nonetheless, he found himself on that road once again, both hopeful and hopeless, cloaked in the memory of a serene night and an indescribable girl. 

**Author's Note:**

> I did not have a plan when writing this, but I'm definitely not mad at how it came out. I did kinda panic about how to make up a myth bc I'm not going to try and out-worldbuild Patrick Rothfuss, but I think I did alright all things considered. 
> 
> Thank you for reading!


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